It Happened On #36

Salutations fellow readers! Thank you for joining me for another It Happened On!

It happened on November 2 1947… The Hughes Flying Boat—the largest aircraft ever built—is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle. It was also known as the Spruce Goose

Despite its successful maiden flight, the Spruce Goose never went into production, primarily because critics alleged that its wooden framework was insufficient to support its weight during long flights. Howard Hughes he kept the Spruce Goose prototype ready for flight in an enormous hangar at a cost of $1 million per year. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon

Also on November 2 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a bill establishing a federal holiday on the third Monday of January in honour of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

That’s it for today. Kind of boring but I like the name Spruce Goose but I don’t think I’d fly in a wooden airplane